Living the theory: when life is the wicked problem

I am a great believer that theory should influence practice and vice versa. It seems futile for the two spheres to be disconnected; what is the value of research that doesn’t change practice and likewise if practice doesn’t engage with research then that seems futile. However, of late I have begun to wonder if I am no longer using theory so much as living it. Bear with me and I will endeavour to explain my thought process about wicked problems using Alice in Wonderland to help me.

Wicked problems are a real thing despite the name often prompting people to think otherwise; it isn’t just me using the word wicked to describe an especially awful problem! They are problems that are defined as having no right or wrong solution, there is often no end to them, they can be messy and complex and finding a best fit way of dealing with the problem can often create another situation that needs dealing with. Furthermore, you tend to only get one shot at resolving a wicked problem and each problem tends to be unique. The name wicked doesn’t mean the problems are evil or horrid but rather that they are complex and challenging.

In education we come across wicked problems all the time. To give an example, think about your budget. It is finite and you have to decide how best to spend it knowing that there isn’t enough to do everything you need to do so you have to make some tough decisions. Those decisions have ripple effects and as a leader you have no choice but to find the best fit way through the options available to you and hope that you pick the route that does least damage. Wicked problems are the ones that often niggle at you, keep you awake at night and can make you worry. They are indicative of how complex schools are; they are complexity theory in action and not necessarily in a good way.

So that is the theoretical background to my thinking, and I bet you’re wondering where I am heading with this. Well, I shall try to explain. As we know, life has been throwing us curveballs in all directions lately.  It has been stressful, emotional and challenging. There have been good days, bad days and quite frankly, scary days. As I was reflecting on what about the current state of affairs was the biggest cause of anxiety, I realised that for me, it is the lack of respite from it. This is where the feeling of living the theory of wicked problems comes in.  

When I am faced with a wicked problem at work it can trickle over into my home life but generally I can close the door to it and take some time away from it thus freeing up the head space to deal with it when I am recharged. I can acknowledge that the situation I am dealing with is a wicked problem and I can accept that there is no right answer, but I can trust in myself that I will find the best way through it. However right now I am starting to understand how Alice must have felt after she fell down the rabbit hole. She landed in Wonderland and whilst things were recognisable enough for her to try to make sense of, everything was out of kilter and it was all very strange. Every decision she made had a ripple effect; should she drink from the bottle labelled “drink me” or not? Would that make her too big or too small? Would she be able to move, or would she get stuck?

Alice couldn’t pause and think of how to tackle each problem; she had to follow that white rabbit and hope for the best. She ran around in circles with the Dodo, went to the Mad Hatter’s tea party and nearly lost her head to the whims of the Queen of Hearts. Fortunately for Alice, she woke up and realised it is all a dream – she got to escape from her surreal situation. We aren’t currently so lucky; we haven’t woken up to find it is all over, we are still very much in our surreal situation.

I think the reason that it feels that theory has become life is because we are so immersed in the wicked problem. It isn’t exclusively a work or a home issue, it is a complex, interconnected situation covering all elements of our existence. There is no opportunity to close the office door and park it until tomorrow, we are living it and that is mighty draining. Working from home means the lines between home and work have become blurred more than ever before making it harder to take those all important steps back to give ourselves time to think about what steps to take to plot our best route through.

So yes, we appear to be living in a wicked problem and experiencing complexity in all its glory. As leaders and human beings all we can do is, I think, acknowledge the unrivalled uniqueness of the current situation and do our best to find our way through. There is no right answer, there will be ripples from every decision we make and currently there is no respite. All we can do is be kind to ourselves and look after those around us. One day we will have our Alice moment and wake up which will give us the time to reflect on our time down the rabbit hole and then dust ourselves off and move on, experiencing wicked problems but no longer living them.